


In the Flames

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: Valentine's Kisses 2019 [40]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fuck Buddies to Lovers, Homophobia, I'm so sorry, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:51:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: Iwaizumi Hajime is a filthy rich 30-something with the hots for his business partner's son — a relationship destined to end in disaster.





	In the Flames

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fall from Grace](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853951) by [Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays). 



Well, this meeting is fucking boring.

Hajime bites back a yawn while some pedantic market forecaster spells doom and gloom for their upcoming quarter. As if he hasn’t been grossly incorrect about the past three before it. 

Such as it is, there’s no conceivable way a microtechnology manufacturer in the age of mobile electronics could possibly have a bad season. Maybe the man needs to switch to decaf before predicting the financial apocalypse.

At least he’s not the only one trying not to fall asleep on the conference table. Hajime spies a young man not much older than twenty hiding drooping eyes behind an obscenely large cup of coffee. There are subtle differences, but he is certainly the son of the older man sitting next to him, Kunimi Hotaru. 

Ah, Hajime remembers those days, shadowing his father to learn how to take over a business he doesn’t want anything to do with. However, his father’s untimely death had vaulted Hajime into the business world before he could properly enjoy being young, stupid, and rich. Now he’s stuck being young, stupid, and rich on the weekends. 

He finds himself wondering what the younger Kunimi does to burn off copious hours of boredom.

Once the blessed release of lunch rolls around, Hajime fights the urge to flee the room, instead departing at a brisk pace to make a beeline for the espresso machine. There is not strong enough coffee in the universe to make financial statistics absorbable, let alone interesting. 

Hajime finds himself in good company in that department. Arriving shortly behind him is younger man who had caught his attention, who takes the first shot of espresso and drinks it straight.

“Whoa there,” Hajime says, nearly dropping his own empty cup. “Are you trying to stay awake or lift off to the moon?”

“Anywhere’s better than here.” He frowns at his cup before he sets it on the counter. “Iwaizumi-san, right?”

Hajime nods. “Yeah, Iwaizumi Hajime. Kunimi-san?”

“Akira is fine.” Akira chortles. “At the risk of sounding like a stereotype, Kunimi-san is my father. I’m just me.”

Rolling his eyes, Hajime groans. “Yeah, same. I never wanted any of this, and now I’m some mogul of a business I don’t know or care anything about.” He grabs a nearby pot of coffee and fills the largest cup he can find. Akira snatches it from his hand and sets into it right away. “I’d be mad if I didn’t completely commiserate.”

“Thought as much.” Akira grabs the canister of sugar and dumps an unholy amount into his coffee. “I really wish coffee tasted better.”

With a snort, Hajime says, “How about you not drink espresso without the rest of the drink in it, you psychopath.”

Akira chuckles at that, and the two of them fall into an easy silence while Hajime finds the second largest cup and fills that for himself instead. The rest of the conference drags by, but Hajime is a lot more alert for the rest of it because he catches himself watching Akira more than whatever presenter is currently droning on. 

After their long-awaited parole from the meeting room, Hajime can’t flee fast enough. However, just as he’s about to jog down the steps to find his car and go do something interesting with what’s left of his day, the only voice he thinks could actually get him to slow down calls out to him from next to the doors. 

“You wanna get out of here?” Akira calls out, and Hajime doesn’t have to think too hard to answer, “Hell yeah, I do.”

Piling into Hajime’s Ferrari, a gift to himself from himself for his 30th birthday earlier that year, they speed off toward the absurdly enormous house Hajime lives in alone, aside from the handful of staff it takes to keep a place that side clean and running.

The door of Hajime’s bedroom barely closes behind them before they start tearing each other’s clothes off, and an hour later, they’re dozing atop the covers on Hajime’s bed. Akira is draped on top of him, face buried in the crook of his shoulder.

“So that happened,” Hajime murmurs, his fingers idly tracing figure-eights on the smooth skin of Akira’s back. “You have to be anywhere tomorrow?”

Akira shakes his head and burrows further into the recesses of Hajime’s embrace. “‘S Saturday.”

“Good.” Hajime angles Akira’s face to his and kisses him until they’re both gasping for air. “If you want to spend all weekend doing this, I’m game.”

With a lazy smile, Akira hums. “As if I’d let you go now. I’ve never had to do less to get off in my whole life. You —” He presses a searing kiss to Hajime’s lips. “— can fuck me senseless anytime.”

Hajime groans and closes his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

One weekend and several pizza deliveries later, the two of them return to the office on Monday to resume business as usual. Not at the same time — Akira doesn’t know how his dad will react to him being plowed by a senior partner and doesn’t particularly care to find out. 

The day grinds on, they meet up at a sleazy bar nearby, and Hajime’s sheets get changed for the fourth night in a row, and Akira’s personal assistant Kindaichi makes a few trips for fresh changes of clothes.

Weeks turn into months, and while their rabid bouts of lovemaking slow in frequency to weekends with an occasional weekday thrown in, there is little time Hajime has away from work that isn’t wrapped up in Akira. Whether it’s sweat-slicked sex all night or watching the Food Network while Akira uses him as a pillow, Hajime likes all of it.

A long, obnoxious trip to Tokyo hampers their time together. Two weeks of pedantic old men acting like losing a few million is the end of the world drags on while Hajime struggles to stay awake. All he wants is to go back to Sendai so he can ride Akira until they’re both milked dry. 

Hajime stumbles back into the office late on a Friday night. There are just a few shreds of work to be done before he can bunk off for the weekend and dive headfirst into what really matters to him — Akira. Yet he is unprepared for that familiar silken voice that calls out to him from the shadows. “You didn’t even tell me you were back. I should punish you for that. Good thing Dad’s working late and I’m pretending to help, or I wouldn’t even have known you were here.”

Biting back a smile, Hajime shakes his head. “I was going to finish up my paperwork before I did that. I wonder if the stock market will collapse if I leave it until Monday.”

“I wish it would,” Akira moans, climbing onto Hajime’s lap and draping arms around his shoulders. “Then I could have you all to myself.”

“You’re a greedy little shit, aren’t you?” 

Akira smirks. “You can’t get enough of being a doting lover, and I can’t get enough of being on the receiving end. Isn’t that why you love me?”

Hajime’s jaw drops at that word, and he realizes it’s exactly what this thing is between them. “I do,” he breathes, and Akira swoops down for a hungry kiss. 

Neither of them hear the door creak open until an angry shout tears them apart. “Akira!” The elder Kunimi storms into Hajime’s office, eyes ablaze as he takes in the sight of his heir apparent straddling his business partner.

“Damn it,” Akira mutters, rolling his eyes. “This is none of your business, Dad.”

Hotaru fixes his glare on Hajime and growls, “Are you responsible for this? Perverting my son?”

Akira tilts his head back and laughs. “Sorry, Dad. That’s a pre-existing condition. I turned into a pervert all on my own.” 

He plants a kiss on Hajime’s lips, but Hajime barely notices. He can’t tear his gaze away from the pure rage on Hotaru’s face. Hotaru has always been on the boring side, but Hajime doesn’t ever recall him being angry. He wouldn’t have even thought the man capable of such utter hatred before this day, and he isn't even certain if it’s directed toward him or Akira. 

Either way, he won’t stand there and take it without a fight.

Pushing Akira from his lap, Hajime stalks over to stand nose to nose with Hotaru, hands balled into fists at his side. “There’s nothing wrong with me or him, so back off.”

Hotaru looms, a good five or more centimeters taller than Hajime even in his aging stature. “I will not have my only heir . . .  _ cavorting _ with you like some whore, Iwaizumi. Your father is probably spinning in his grave, seeing his legacy being dragged through the mud by you flaunting your lack of respect for everything he built.”

“That has nothing to do with it, and you know it.” Hajime crosses his arms and lurches closer to Hotaru. “This is about you being a piece of shit about your son liking other men. You wouldn’t give a damn if it were me and some other random guy. You just don’t want to get any of it on your lawn.”

A steel grip closes around Hajime’s throat, and his vision blurs. “Maybe so, but I’m better than you in every way that matters, boy, and I’ll make sure you don’t forget it.”

Hotaru gives Hajime a rough shove into the file cabinet behind him and turns onto Akira. “We’re going home, and you’re going back to college in Tokyo and you’re not coming back until you learn to behave.”

Akira rolls his eyes. “Oh no, a school full of other boys. However will I manage.”

A loud slap rings in Hajime’s ear as Hotaru backhands Akira. “You’re always running your mouth, but you never think about the consequences of what you say and do.” He grabs Akira’s arm and drags him toward the door. “We’re leaving, and you’re never seeing him again.”

Wrenching himself out of Hotaru’s grasp, Akira hisses, “Let me go. I’ll do whatever the hell I want.” Akira goes behind Hajime’s desk and leans against it. “And you can’t stop me.”

Anger the likes of which Hajime has never seen and never wants to again boils over in Hotaru, and he storms back through the office. He takes the ornate iron chair resting in the corner of the room and hurls it at the window, sending a spray of broken glass to the lawn two stories below. For the first time since this confrontation, Akira actually looks scared. 

“Kunimi-san, this isn’t what you want,” Hajime pleads, shuffling Akira behind him. “We haven’t done anything wrong and we’re not hurting anybody, but if you want me to stop seeing him, I will. Just —” His voice cracks. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Hotaru scoffs. “If it isn’t you, then it’ll just be someone else. If a decade of trying to squash this defect out of him hasn’t worked, it never will.” He snatches Akira’s wrist and drags him toward the gaping hole where the window used to be. “It’s a shame I’ll have to waste another twenty years to raise a real son.”

“Akira!” Hajime scrambles to take Akira’s other hand, and he does just that when Hotaru shoves his son off the glass-strewn edge of the floor to ceiling window.

The air is like white noise in Hajime’s ears as Akira’s weight draws him into the freefall. He sees a ghost of a smile on Akira’s face before they land, with Akira’s back hitting the ground first before Hajime lands on top of him and smacking his face on the glass-strewn ground.

Hajime feels ribs snapping beneath his bulk, and a dribble of blood spurts out the corner of his mouth. But what he notices more than the pain radiating from every part of his body is what feels like tears leaching from his eyes carries the coppery stench of blood. He can’t see, and when he tries to sit up, his legs don’t respond to his commands. 

That doesn’t matter, though. Everything that matters to him is the man who had been sandwiched between the grass and himself, unmoving and barely choking breaths in and out. “Akira,” he croaks, blood and a few dislodged teeth clogging his throat. “Akira, please say something.”

A shadow of his name pierces through the blood roaring in Hajime’s ears, and he hefts himself onto his elbows and drags his useless body toward the source of the sound, to Akira. Glass digs into his skin and he doesn’t give a damn.

“I’m sorry,” Hajime wheezes. “This is all my fault.”

“No.” Akira struggles for another breath before he rasps, “Love you.”

Tears mingle with the blood oozing down his face, and Hajime blindly presses his lips to Akira’s face until their mouths touch. “I know.”

The dull heartbeat under Hajime’s palm slows and then stops, and he stays slumped over Akira’s still form, feeling the warmth slowly leaching out into the cold ground below them while ambulance and police sirens wail around them. 

Hajime screams and he screams as unwelcome hands pry him away from Akira and into an ambulance, but his muscles are weak and damaged and he can’t fight hard enough to get back to Akira. On the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, Hajime cries until he can’t anymore, hoping that when the painkillers pumping through his body kick in, he never wakes up.

But wake up he does, stark white blazing through the gauze over his eyes and through his eyelids from the loud sunshine pouring into the room. When he tries to stir and can’t, his resulting groan draws a yelp of surprise from someone next to him.

“Iwaizumi-san, stay still or you’ll pop your stitches,” comes the meek voice of Akira’s assistant, Kindaichi. 

“Then they can pop.” The words crackle in his throat, which is bone dry and painful. He doesn’t care about that. The only thing that matters isn’t even in the room. God knows he doesn’t care what happens to himself anymore. “Akira . . .”

“I —” Kindaichi’s voice cracks, and Hajime has his answer. “They tried everything. There was just . . . too much bleeding.”

Hajime reaches out with a shaking hand, and Kindaichi takes it in his. “I’m not leaving you alone. Akira-san wouldn’t want that.”

The waver in Kindaichi’s voice as it wraps around Akira’s name makes Hajime’s chest ache from more than just the slew of broken ribs he has. Hand in hand, he listens to Kindaichi weep for not only his former employer, but also a good friend.

A good friend who knew about the two of them and cannot keep a secret to save his life.

“Kindaichi.” Hajime squeezes his hand and accepts the paper cup of water at his lips, the room temperature liquid soothing his sandpaper throat. “Come home with me.”

The hand wrapped in his tightens, and he hears Kindaichi gasp. “Why would you want that?”

“Because if Kunimi wants to get rid of someone like you, nobody’s going to look twice.” The truth is harsh, and Hajime winces as he says it. “And you’re all I have left of him.”

“But Iwaizumi-san, I —”

“I’ll pay you double.”

“I don’t know if I can —”

“Okay, triple.”

“I don’t know if I can do what you need me to do.” Kindaichi sighs heavily. “Iwaizumi-san, I looked at your chart when I got here, and you’re probably never going to walk again, and you might never be able to see again, either. I don’t know how to take care of someone with that much of a handicap. I’m just a personal gopher.”

Hajime rolls his eyes, only to feel white hot pain throb behind them from the movement. “Jesus Christ.” When the hazy din of agony subsides, he says finally, “I don’t need a servant. I just need you to read to me or talk to me or whatever, because if I go back to that house alone, I’m going to —” He chokes on the end of his sentence. “I don’t want to be alone. Please.”

“Of course, Iwaizumi-san.” Tears drip onto Hajime’s knuckles, and he wishes he were strong enough or sighted enough to dash them away. Kindaichi is a good kid who works hard, and he needs to be as far away from Hotaru as he can get. 

And, of course, what Hajime had said before is true; if he is forced to be alive after all of this, he does not want to do it alone. 

Through weeks of hospitalization, Kindaichi stays by his side. He reads the newspaper, talks about the weather, and here and there, he’ll tell Hajime something about Akira he didn’t know before. 

Finally, his sentence of being chained by tubes and wires in a bed is over, and he is finally released to go home. He hires a giant asshat of a nurse, a guy who can probably break every bone in his body if he is so inclined, and Kindaichi does the same thing for him as he had at the hospital: be there and remind Hajime every minute of every day that Akira is dead and it’s all his fault.

As he sits in the long dormant library, the merry shine of the fireplace soaking into his damaged corneas so he can see all of his ghosts in perfect illumination.

When Kindaichi leaves, he’ll slide back the hidden compartment in the arm of his usual chair and run his fingers over the smooth surface of two perfect capsules, waiting to add his ghost to the story written in the flames.


End file.
